


Episode Review: Spectra Space Spider

by GrumpyGhostOwl



Series: Grumpy Episode Reviews [7]
Category: Battle of the Planets
Genre: Episode Review
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 04:53:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8387929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyGhostOwl/pseuds/GrumpyGhostOwl
Summary: Chief Anderson has the idiot ball in this episode and he's running with it. Yes indeed.





	

One of the more poignant episodes in this series is the one where Anderson's good friend and former colleague, Dr Strecker, turns against the Federation. The episode is rich in symbolism and pathos, and allows Anderson's character a rare opportunity to develop. (He has an acute attack of the stupids.)  
  
Unfortunately, however, as with all _Battle of the Planets_ episodes, 7-Zark-7 makes the introductions. Think of a TV show you like and think of the most annoying thing about that show. Think of the thing that you wish they'd get rid of to make it, like, the perfect show, and then think about Zark. Let's face it: for me at least, Zark makes any annoying thing in any of the other shows I like fade into total insignificance. That business with Teal'c's hair in _Stargate: SG-1_? Not a problem. 'Battlestar Galactica: X hours/days earlier'? A walk in the 'fracking' park. I even watched a WHOLE THREE MINUTES of _Australian Idol_ one time. Okay, I'd had a couple glasses of the local cabernet shiraz blend, but that's not the point... My point is that I have looked into the heart of sci-fi darkness, people, and I have seen Zark.  
  
The sun filters down past the artificial coral cay past the delicate metal structures of Center Neptune and those three fish, the red ones with yellow heads, are swimming past. It looks like another beautiful day in the Pacific, then Zark opens his metaphorical trap: "This is Center Neptune, watchdog of the universe. We keep constant watch on every planet in the galaxy for signs of any unusual problems. Right now, I've been asked by President Kane of the Intergalactic Federation to check on the terrible drought which has dried up Stellar City."  
  
This little expository moment would carry some ominous weight if it wasn't for the 'cute robot' theme music playing in the background. I mean, okay, Zark keeps 'constant watch on every planet in the galaxy' (nice trick if you can manage it) and the President, like, dude, the _President_ has asked him to check on a terrible drought, and if anyone reading this has ever been in a drought, you'd know that it's pretty damned grim, and there's this stupid 'cute robot' music. Way to totally invalidate the dialogue, man.  
  
Two minutes forty two seconds into the episode (including the preview blurb and main title) and already I'm ranting. This does not bode well.  
  
Zark now does that aerodynamically improbable thing with the flapping cape to cover the five feet from where he was standing to the main tactical console. Two minutes forty six seconds into the episode and I need a cup of tea. Oh, there's some heavy duty boding going on here, all right.  
  
"Sometimes," Zark says, and Alan Young puts a warm, parental note into his voice for this bit, "I wish everything would work out the way it's supposed to." He pauses for a brief flash of Zark's facial LEDs. "I mean," he adds brightly, "wouldn't it be great if rain rained, and the sun shined (sic) just when they were meant to?" _Shined_? That's not a word in the English language. The past tense of 'shine,' is 'shone.' And this show was billed as having educational content. Hey, there's no literacy crisis, right?  
  
...  
  
Okay. I just went and compiled some tax forms. _Tax forms_ , okay? Because that was more appealing than Zark.  
  
...  
  
Thank whatever powers that be. The 'cute robot' music has stopped and we're down to the ordinary background noise of Nerve Center. "Our research into weather modification," Zark continues, "may some day make it possible to control hurricanes and tornadoes, and even droughts!" Optimistic little toad, isn't he? The camera zooms in on Zark's view screens, which display patterns of coloured dots. "I'm having trouble bringing in Stellar City," says Zark. "I'll switch on my long range tele-comm satellite signals. There it is. Something eerie!"  
  
We see an image of a ruined city. It looks like a war zone, with a pall of smoke hanging low over the landscape and ruined, abandoned buildings blackened with smoke. This doesn't look like a drought-affected area. This looks like it's been bombed.  
  
"Almost like a giant spider web in the sky above the city," Zark continues, and I'm sorry, what? "which blocked out rain clouds, and caused the drought!"  
  
The camera pans upward, taking in two dead trees with crows, some perched in the branches and others wheeling sluggishly above. As the view swings further up, we see the sun creating a rather fetching lens flare, and there's the suggestion of something that does indeed resemble an orb weaver's web now that Zark has planted the suggestion.  
  
Zark continues, an urgent note to his voice, now: "All living things are drying up, and not even the birds can find a morsel to eat." The birds fly down toward the camera. They have yellow legs and bills and they caw. They're obviously meant to be corvids of some kind.  
  
We cut to what I'm going to call the Federal Building, an octagonal tower with a round conference room on the roof. Zark is still giving us a running commentary at this point. I'm hoping he'll shut up any minute now. (We're at three minutes twenty nine seconds, but who's counting?)  
  
"President Kane," Zark says, "has declared a State of Emergency in Stellar City!" Now we see trucks, presumably full of relief/aid supplies, driving up a ramp onto a large military transport plane. "Emergency rations are being airlifted by remote-controlled cargo planes."  
  
Oh, dear.  
  
Whenever Zark mentions remote-controlled vehicles, you know there are going to be tears before bed time.  
  
The remote-controlled cargo planes start their engines, and they're using afterburners. On heavy transports. Wow. Either that or whoever is at the remote controls poured in way too much fuel and the engines are blowing themselves to kingdom come as a result.  
  
I guess the engines are still functioning, because the planes take off into an angry, louring sky full of foreboding.  
  
"I hope they get through," Zark breathes.  
  
And we just know they won't, because they've poured so much dramatic irony into setting this up as a horrible, tragic disaster where even the relief effort is going to be a disaster, so it's like, disaster squared, or something.  
  
The jets, flying in close formation, are on course for Stellar City. They appear to be flying into cloud, then we see a dark shape slowly becoming apparent. The clouds part, and there in the centre of frame is a strange looking craft. As sky clears, the music gets all dramatic, and we are offered a view through the windscreen of one of the remote-controlled transports.  
  
The strange ship looks to be roughly spherical with four odd protrusions radiating out like stabilisers or something, and it has a bright pink nacelle.  
  
Pink.  
  
Okay, 'I am the Pink-Nosed Baseball Ship of Doom! DOOOOOOOM, I tells ya!'  
  
Its nose is _pink_ , people.  
  
We cut to a side view and get to see the strange ship clearly for the first time. Okay, it _is_ meant to look a bit like a spider. It even has these funny little things that look like palps at the front.  
  
I stand corrected: 'I am the Pink Nosed SPIDER Ship of Doom!'  
  
Anyway, twin hatches open up astern, where the spinnarets would be on an actual Arachnid, and these little rockety thingies zoom out. There are lots of them, like spiderlings hatching from an egg. Okay, we've got some good spidery stuff happening now.  
  
And more importantly, Zark has shut up. Now maybe we can start enjoying this show.  
  
It says a lot for _Battle of the Planets_ that so many fans stuck with it and still love it, even after all these years. We love it even as we see the episodes again on tape or DVD through more discerning adult eyes, despite the fact that it has Zark in it. Zark was and is so execrable, and yet we were and are able to see past him to the underlying quality of the the show. Just imagine how good it could have been without Zark, and I'm not talking _Gatchaman_ or any of the other incarnations, I'm talking about how good BotP could have been if you took the BotP concepts as a show, by itself, and made it as BotP, without Zark. In fact, I am given to understand that Jason Hofius tried to do just that but the networks wouldn't come to the party or something. And that's sad. Because it could have been so damned good.  
  
The spiderling rockety thingies are rocketing away from their mothership, now, and we see some kind of console showing what I take to be the spiderlings spreading out in a circle. The music is getting really sinister, so we know that something bad is about to happen.  
  
Cut to an exterior shot and, yes, there's Ma Spider with all the Baby Spiders arranged in a big ring around Mama.  
  
Now from the four stabiliser-looking thingamabobs on the mother ship, these little doovies (note the precise technical terminology) come out and they start emitting what looks like yellow instant party streamer stuff, or maybe it's a laser-powered omnitastic galactic pasta machine... No, look, it's more controlled than that. Whatever is coming out of the mother ship is undulating with a definite sine wave pattern and it's collectively forming... wait for it... _a spider web_!  
  
Bet you would never have guessed that was going to happen, right?  
  
The artists obviously thought about this a fair bit because the sine-wavy pattern works in to the spider web quite cleverly, and there's all this sparkly business happening as well, while the ominous music just keeps driving it home to the audience that this is bad, bad, bad!  
  
But sparkly.  
  
So be warned, boys and girls, that even if something is sparkly, it can still be bad.  
  
The bad sparkly not-laser-powered omnitastic pasta whatever-it-is continues sparkling, and connects up with the spiderlings. Aboard the mother ship, the tactical display gleams, an indicator moves to full and a Mysterious Finger presses a Big Red Button.  
  
The big sparkly bad spider web starts to pulse with energy, and we can see the poor remote-controlled cargo planes heading straight for it!  
  
And you just know that even though the audience can see what's coming, whoever is in charge back at Remote-controlled Expendable Vehicle Headquarters can't, and what happens next is going to generate a lot of paperwork.  
  
The planes hit the web, and they stick to it, hanging there, impossibly, engines at full power, while the web goes live and zaps them into oblivion.  
  
The planes explode.  
  
We see the tactical display aboard the mother ship, then the camera pulls back to reveal the owner of the Mysterious Finger! It's... A Mysterious Back!  
  
Mysterious Back is laughing evilly.  
  
The villains in this show almost always laugh evilly. I wonder if you have to pass a course and get certified as competent in Evil Laughter before you can qualify as a villain?  
  
Anyway, we cut to Mysterious Back's Mysterious Front, and it's, like, this guy, still doing the Evil Laughter, and he's obviously Evil because:  
  
1\. He's wearing black,  
2\. He's got AN EYE PATCH, and  
3\. He's doing the Evil Laughter thing.  
  
Let's face it, he might as well be wearing a t-shirt that says, 'Kiss Me, I'm Evil.'  
  
"Well," says Mysterious Front, Back and Finger, (and it's Alan Young doing an Evil Voice just to put the icing on the cake and demonstrate beyond all doubt that this guy is Evil) "I guess that settles that!" He turns to look at something off screen, and as he speaks, we see he's addressing a familiar figure on his ship's tele-comm screen. "I told you, Zoltar," continues Mysterious Front, Back and Finger, "that my Tronic Space Web is impenetrable!"  
  
The voice is so clearly Evil Zark, it's creeping me out.  
  
In this shot, Zoltar looks like a character from that comic, _Cats With Hands_ and he says, "I'm pleased, Doctor Strecker. Your defection from Center Neptune could not have come at a better time." Whoa. Mysterious Front, Back and Finger (who we now know as Dr Strecker) is a defector! He really _is_ Evil! We cut to a view of Strecker, looking ever so slightly conflicted at being reminded of his status. "Your scientific knowledge will prove very valuable to Spectra," Zoltar says, and he manages to look smug and menacing as he tilts his head back from the camera. "I shall help you gain the revenge you seek against Center Neptune for dismissing you, but first, you shall arrange a meeting with your old friend, Chief Anderson!"  
  
The camera does a fast zoom in on Strecker's face, and the guy looks shocked at this. There's a very quick flashback to an image of Anderson looking back over his shoulder -- is this symbolic of friends walking away from each other? We're back to Strecker again, who is leaning forward, looking angry. "Just seeing his face starts me blazing with old memories!" Strecker declares, and turns away. Is he reluctant to let Zoltar see him get angry, or is he trying to hide something else? Fear? A reluctance to confront Anderson directly? Or is it grief? I think it's grief. It never ceases to impress me how the animators can convey so much emotion in the way the characters hold themselves.  
  
"I shall avail you every oppportunity to square your charge with the noble Chief Anderson," Zoltar says, and what the hell is that sentence? 'Avail you every opportunity'? 'Square your charge'? Are they trying to make it painfully clear that English is not Zoltar's first language?  
  
Come to think of it, that's a really good rationalisation, isn't it?  
  
The sad part is that I think it's probably more likely to just be bad writing.  
  
"All I ask from you," Zoltar says, continuing to speak, unperturbed, to Strecker's Mysterious Back, "is to take a few little photographs for me. I shall pay you well for them."  
  
Strecker whirls about, lunging toward the camera. "All I want is Anderson!" he snarls. Does he, really? Okay, let's say he does. And anyone with their mind in the gutter at this stage can just keep your thoughts to yourself or go write a fanfic with appropriate warnings, thank you. This is family entertainment, okay?  
  
"You asked for him, Strecker," Zoltar soothes, "and you'll get him. Tell him to come alone and meet you on the Island of Zareeba." It's hard to make out exactly what Zoltar is saying, here, but I'll spell it the way I hear it, and what I'm hearing sounds like 'Zah-REE-bah'. "Tell him that you want to talk with him about surrendering, and going back to Center Neptune. If I know G-Force, they will never let Anderson go alone to meet you. Anderson and G-Force will fall in to our little trap, and you... merely have to snap a few pictures." Strecker looks miserable at this. "Then you dispose of your old friend Chief Anderson any way you see fit." Zoltar's image fades.  
  
Neat plan, but won't G-Force still be there, or is Zoltar relying on them seeing spots from the camera flash? Sounds to me like Ol' Kinky (to coin a phrase) is getting ready to dispose of Strecker.  
  
Does Strecker see this? Maybe he does, and is so consumed by his desire for vengeance that he doesn't care.  
  
Wow. That's some serious character building, isn't it?  
  
For a moment, we see Strecker leaning over the command console as though he's unable to stand. He's clearly consumed with some powerful emotion -- anger, guilt, grief, most likely a mix of all of those and then some. Strecker recovers himself, straightens and removes his eye patch. He lays it face down on the console and we can see that there's a neat little round space in it that obviously isn't meant to hold a prosthetic eyeball. In the palm of one hand, he holds a little round device, and with the other he inserts what looks like a tiny film cartridge into the device. He tests it, and we see an iris and a lens shutter operate. It's a camera. He fits the camera into his eye patch, and puts the eye patch back on.  
  
The music goes really ominous with lots of strings, and we just know that someone's going to get hurt.  
  
  
  
The sun is still shining (the present tense verb of 'shine') from the exact same angle through the water at Center Neptune, only the fish have invited all their friends around to play. Thank goodness, there's no Zarkiness, but we cut straight to Anderson's office. He's holding an old-fashioned cassette tape in one hand and addressing G-Force:  
  
"This recorded message from Doctor Strecker just arrived," he says. "I'm afraid he is now involved in the evil doings of Spectra." Evil doings, huh? Nothing like reinforcing that whole, 'the end justifies the means' position by neatly categorising your enemy as Evil. Anderson inserts the cassette into a player, and we see G-Force clustered around the desk. Anderson has this big office, with, like heaps of floor space and hardly any actual furniture or office equipment in it. Technology in the BotP universe must be, like, so advanced, all you need to run an intelligence agency spanning the entire galaxy is a small desk and a cassette tape player. Wow.  
  
Anderson presses 'Play' and we hear Alan Young's Evil Voice, sounding all little because he was probably standing back from the microphone to make it sound like a recording: "I bet you never thought you'd hear from me again, didn't you, Chief Anderson?" Anderson turns away, hands behind his back, and it's almost a mirror of Strecker's posture in the earlier scene. You know, when someone clasps their hands behind their back, they're trying to stay in control. Anderson lives and breathes control. Right now, it looks like he's trying to control his own emotions. Just like Strecker was doing before.  
  
What the hell happened between these two?  
  
Strecker continues: "You always said we'll be friends for ever, or have you forgotten that we were friends, once, before you shelved my tronic project and fired me? Remember? Well, I found a new market for my skills. I have secret information about the drought in Stellar City."  
  
The camera pans across the room, showing the G-Force team staring at the player, wide-eyed and intent on the message. Anderson is standing with his back to them, hands behind his back, head bowed, eyes closed, infinitely sad at what's going on. This is obviously not the first time he's listened to this tape, and he's grieving over it. Human beings grieve for the deaths of relationships just as we grieve for the deaths of individuals, and the animators have captured this so well, here. No wonder this stuff blew us away in the seventies and early eighties. It blows me away even now. These are animated characters, and they're internalising so well, we can see them being torn apart emotionally. How awesome is that?  
  
"If you want to save the inhabitants of Stellar City," Strecker says, in his best Evil voice, and we cut back to that same shot from above of everybody's back, "then you will meet me on the Island of Zareeba, tonight, at eighteen hundred hours, and, Anderson, come alone, and I mean, alone." Young uses his voice to great effect, pitching the last two syllables low and drawing out the last one, so it sounds all sinister and creepy. Would you go to meet this guy alone? I wouldn't. I'd be taking, like, a contingent of Marines and a pointy stick, because nobody likes a pointy stick and it'd make Strecker nervous. I mean, if you're crazy enough to come at a certified Laugh Accredited Evil Villain armed with only pointy stick, you're capable of pretty much anything, and he'd better watch out, right?  
  
Yeah, you’d better bring a pointy stick, Chief.  
  
Over Anderson's left shoulder, Mark is staring, appalled, at the player. He turns his attention to the back of Anderson's head and the camera zooms in on Mark's face. He is concerned, because he knows how stupid Anderson can be when Anderson gets stupid, and Anderson, much as I love him to bits, gets extraordinarily stupid sometimes.  
  
"You can't go out there alone, Chief!" Mark protests, voicing all our concerns, because we all know it's An Evil Trap! "It might be a trap!" Do you notice how when a character gets stupid, the intelligence immediately passes to the next person in the chain of command? When Mark is stupid, Jason is smart, and now Anderson is stupid, so it's Mark who has to be smart.  
  
Anderson turns from his persual of the fish outside, and I never noticed before how he was staring at a big round window rather than a wall, but of course that's a habit he has, isn't it? He so often stands at windows and things, like he's trying to stare down his own reflection, and that's so symbolic, like he's confronting his shadow-self when he does that.  
  
As he turns, he releases his hands, letting go of that control. "That's the chance I've got to take," Anderson says. "He's a desperate man," he rationalises, "maybe I can reason with him. We were close friends, once, before he defected to Spectra."  
  
We see another of those little internal flash back things, and there's Dr Strecker, with two good eyes, his hair all neatly combed in contrast to the messy Alice-Cooper type 'do' he's sporting in his role as Evil Villain (hey, you get a total makeover with the Evil Villain package!) He's wearing a bad seventies suit with a dark shirt, wide tie, and looks like he's carrying more weight than Evil Villain Strecker, which makes sense.  
  
"He had such a brilliant future," Anderson recalls, "so much potential. What a waste!" The other Alan, Dinehart this time, spits the last phrase, putting so much venom into it, you can taste the bitterness Anderson's feeling about this. We pan back to G-Force, as Anderson continues with his exposition. He's got a lid back on it, now, back in control, the same calm, professional Anderson we're used to. "Strecker was one of our top research scientists," he says. "Unfortunately, when I told him his tronic project was too dangerous, he interpreted that as a personal rejection, and stormed off. I've got to go and meet with him."  
  
So, Anderson canned Strecker's project on the grounds that it was too dangerous (as opposed to, say, implanting kids with cerebonic technology and putting them in a command ship that sets itself on fire every other episode) and Strecker reacted both unreasonably and disproportionately, defecting to an enemy power which has the stated aim of conquering his (presumably) home planet.  
  
Oh, there has got to be so much more to this.  
  
And if there isn't, then Strecker is clearly not rational, and logic suggests that meeting a crazy guy with a grudge alone, and without even a pointy stick, is probably not the most intelligent thing the person against whom that grudge is held could possibly do, right now.  
  
But Anderson's going to do it anyway.  
  
Grief, certainly. Guilt? Probably.  
  
And there has to be more to it than this.  
  
"Maybe," Anderson says, "I can convince him to return with me."  
  
As Anderson walks away, Mark and Jason watch him, and the expressions on their faces say quite plainly that they think Anderson is being a complete and utter tool about this. They exchange a look, and we in the audience can breathe a sigh of relief because the intelligence _has_ trickled down the chain of command, and the kids aren't going to let the Chief walk into Strecker's trap.  
  
At the same time, we can't relax completely, because we know that it's also a trap for G-Force, and they're playing straight into Zoltar's purple-gloved mitts!  
  
Did anyone else notice how Strecker disregarded Zoltar's instructions about the message? Zoltar specifically told Strecker to bait Anderson with the suggestion that Strecker wanted to come in from the cold. Maybe Strecker is so conflicted about this, he's trying to sabotage his own trap, or maybe he isn't conflicted at all and simply knows Anderson better than Zoltar does. Either way, the plot thickens!  
  
  
  
Anderson is walking quickly down a corridor of some kind. The view expands so that we can see he's in some kind of hangar thingy at Center Neptune, and there in the water is a pretty sporty looking sub with what looks like four engines and an open trunk (with the amount of chop in the water, I'd say leaving the trunk open is a really bad idea, but it turns out that this will be a plot requirement.)  
  
Anderson gets in to the sub and fires up the engines immediately (the technology in the BotP universe is so advanced you don't need to run pre-start checks. Wow.) It's some kind of jet powered hovercrafty thing, because it does this little vertical take-off thing on jets. Snazzy! I'd want one of those if there was more room for payload.  
  
Now Zark chimes in (damn) with, "Chief Anderson's a brave man," (hey, I'm sticking with 'stupid' for this episode) "but G-Force has to protect him, even if he doesn't know about it."  
  
Anderson guides the sub away from the docking station, and five shadowy caped figures dash out of the corridor. They leap across the rapidly-widening gap between the hangar deck and the sub, straight into the open trunk, just as the hatch swings closed over the top of them.  
  
The little sub streaks out of Center Neptune and heads for the surface on a really steep ascent. I'd say it's pretty rough in the trunk, and some of those visors are pretty pointy. I hope nobody does themselves a mischief, back there.  
  
The sub breaks the surface and takes off with the afterburners at full bore. We cut quickly to a rocky outcrop, and the camera sweeps down to a rugged little bay, where the mini sub has been drawn up in the shallows. The nacelle opens up, its panels forming a ramp, and just inside the shell is a car, which has been made to fit in there like one of those Russian dolls. The headlights switch on, and the car roars out of the sub shell. That's so cool. Okay, I want one after all, regardless of payload. I mean, I was over the whole sports car thing by my mid-thirties, but this thing Anderson is driving has all the style and versatility that my 4x4 lacks. It would be such a total mid-life crisis car, if only it were red.  
  
The Island of Zareeba looks pretty rough, terrain-wise, and we see the little sports car go bouncing across a corrugated track. Okay, I take it back. On this road, what Anderson needs _is_ my 4x4! We cut to the interior of the trunk, and we see Princess and Keyop, in civvies (glad they lost the pointy visors) being badly shaken up against the spare wheel. There seems to be an awful lot of room in that there trunk.  
  
Now the camera pans over what appears to be a taxiway or something, all smooth sealed asphalt and little lights down the sides.  
  
Anderson's mid-life-mobile speeds up the runway and screeches to a halt. Obviously, technology in the BotP universe is so advanced, Anderson doesn't have to worry about mundane matters like brake pads or liners or anything. Anderson gets out of the car and walks forward. He glances around, then continues walking. We see a shot of him, out there in the open, a perfect target, from behind some 44-gallon drums and other stuff that would afford some really nice cover for a sniper. Brave? Sure, but also stupid, stupid, stupid!  
  
"Over here," rasps the Evil-Strecker voice, and the Chief stops, turning toward the sound, scowling. He's not a happy camper, right now. I totally get that. Anderson takes another couple of steps, then Strecker takes the opportunity for the obligatory Villainous Gloat (as outlined in ISO Professional Development Unit PDM7632-A, 'Comparative Megalomania' for which an 80% pass mark is required for personnel who aspire to senior management positions): "If it isn't my dear old friend!" Strecker says, and Anderson turns toward a sudden blaze of light. He sees Strecker, this messed up wreck of a man, leaning against a pole. From the look on his face, I'd say he's shocked. "You really did want to see me again, didn't you?" Strecker goads. He looks predatory, with malice blazing in his eyes. "What's the matter, old friend? You seem shocked. Don't you recognise me any more? After you fired me," he says, "I continued with my research. But without proper equipment, I lost my eye because of you!"  
  
Anderson is looking at his old friend with an expression of sympathy. "I'm truly sorry about that," he says, but his tone sounds so insincere, it's a wonder Strecker doesn't shoot him then and there. This is control-freak Anderson at his worst. We can see what he's feeling. It's written all over his face, but he's got himself so under control, he can't -- won't -- reach out, not even to this man for whom he's putting his life on the line right at this very moment.  
  
I think I said once before on the BotP mailing list that Anderson appears to have the emotional intelligence of a potato. I still think that's true.  
  
Strecker doesn't shoot Anderson, but only because he apparently has other plans. He lunges forward. "Sorry! Yes! Well, you're here!" And again, Alan Young does that downward pitched, drawn out final syllable to make the last word all creepy.  
  
The two men confront each other at arm's length, just out of range of a punch or a grab. I almost wish they'd circle each other at this point, like wolves, but they don't. They stand there, trying to stare each other down. Anderson has the advantage here, of course. For starters, he has twice the armament in this fight. "I hold you responsible for the loss of my eye, and the loss of my career!" Strecker accuses, and his body language is all aggression, while Anderson's is not so much defensive, as poised to move if he has to. It's nice to see he's retained at least enough brain cells to bang together to achieve that.  
  
"Strecker," Anderson says, and this time, there's genuine compassion in his voice, "I never fired you. You walked out, without a word."  
  
Whoa.  
  
Was this all a terrible misunderstanding? What the hell is going on, here?  
  
"I'm sorry you feel the way you do," Anderson says, while Strecker lights up a cigarette (yep, he's definitely Evil. Bad guys smoke on this show.) "It's a shame to waste great skills like yours. Come back with me."  
  
A flash of light reflects off Strecker's eye patch. Anderson appears not to notice. He's looking sad again, like this was all just a huge mistake, and the entire betrayal of an entire planetful of people can be considered water under the bridge if only Strecker will come back and resume his brilliant career with Galaxy Security.  
  
And the scary part is that it probably could, if Strecker were considered valuable enough. Remember what happened after World War II with those German scientists in the race to build ICBMs? It's not like the idea is without precedent. You can be the worst kind of war criminal, but it always comes down to how much you're worth to whoever's holding your leash.  
  
While Anderson looks sad, someone runs behind him, too fast for identification.  
  
"It's too late for that, now," Strecker says, and his voice is softer, tempered with regret and more of that grief that keeps driving him. If he believes Anderson, it hasn't sunk in, yet, that it's all been for nothing, and when it does, it's going to hurt. A lot. "It's too late," Strecker whispers.  
  
Anderson looks up with dawning horror and makes eye contact.  
  
When Strecker speaks, he's got himself back under control and it's with his Evil Voice again: "It's time to end this little game!" he declares and flicks his cigarette skyward.  
  
The cigarette turns in to a flare at the top of its arc -- you see? They really _are_ dangerous -- illuminating the gloom and revealing that Anderson is not alone: G-Force have been closing in and are standing in a loose arc about three metres from him. They're in their civilian clothes, and they're all motionless, staring, appalled, at the cigarette flare.  
  
Strecker's good eye widens as he focusses and works the shutter release on his Patch-cam. Anderson turns to G‑Force and says, "Get under cover, fast!" He turns back toward Strecker, extending both arms out from his sides in an attempt to block Patch-cam. "He's trying to photograph your faces!"  
  
The team jump, leaping up and backward to get out of Patch-cam's frame. Strecker snaps at least one shot before he says, "Farewell and good riddance, Doctor Anderson!" Then he turns, lobs something in Anderson's direction, and runs. Mark lunges and pushes Anderson out of the way as the grenade, a small one, explodes.  
  
As the smoke clears, we see Mark leaning protectively over Anderson, who is looking decidedly chagrined.  
  
Princess approaches, uncertain. "Are you all right?" she asks hesitantly, as Anderson and Mark straighen up.  
  
"And that's an old friend of the Chiefs?" Tiny snorts, incredulous, still in a fighting crouch.  
  
Keyop warbles and stutters, his young face a picture of dismay. "Friends like that," he pipes, "who needs enemies?"  
  
Keyop's face isn't the only picture of dismay. Anderson's completes the set, and he's giving Mark a decidely pained look.  
  
"I figured we should tag along behind you," Mark explains, "just to play it safe."  
  
"I'm glad you did," Anderson says -- Whoa, is he admitting he made a mistake? Call the Vatican. We need someone out to the Island of Zareeba right away to verify a miracle. "I just hope he didn't get any photographs of you." Way to offer your gracious and genuine gratitude for having your life saved in spite of your own astronomical stupidity, Chief. Anderson stares in the direction Strecker took when he fled. "If Strecker was able to take pictures of you out of G-Force uniform," he says, "you could be identified by every Spectra agent throughout the galaxy."  
  
Gee, Mister Smartypants, maybe you should have thought of that before you took off on this hare-brained little jaunt of yours.  
  
  
  
Ominous music segues to an overhead shot of Zoltar in some kind of control room setup. "I want that picture of G-Force developed immediately," Zoltar says, and he's wearing a particularly nice shade of pink lipstick, today. "And don't botch it up!" he warns. Yeah, don't you hate it when you drop film off at the processor and it gets stuck in the machine or something? (By the time I did the last update of this review, there is only one film processor left in Australia and just about everyone – including me – has gone digital.)  
  
A nervous-looking goon turns to Zoltar. "It's going through photoelectric rinsing right now, Zoltar," says the goon. Way to show lack of respect to your Supreme Leader, goon. Photoelectric rinsing, huh? We never had that in my day. When I took photography in school, we just had a bunch of chemicals, and none of them were called photoelectric anything, although we did rinse, but we used water. Obviously, technology in the BotP universe is... oh, forget it.  
  
"Excellent," says Zoltar, sounding quite chipper in spite of having been addressed by name and not with the usual honorific. "Absolutely superb! At last I shall have a picture of the elusive G-Force out of uniform."  
  
The camera zooms in on an output slot in the machinery on the wall, and Zoltar gloats for a bit in anticipation as a piece of paper starts to feed out of the slot. Zoltar extends his hands and cradles the paper, gently guiding it out of the printer. Oh, he can just taste his triumph, can't he? The camera swings upward to his face as he starts with the Evil Laughter thing.  
  
The laughter is cut short, however, and what we can see of the Z-dude's face turns displeased as he takes in the image. "What?" he exclaims. "Print up another copy!"  
  
  
  
Now we cut to an interior shot somewhere in Center Neptune. Mark is looking miserable. There's sad, regretful music playing. Trumpet or some similar shiny instrument.  
  
Misery loves company, and the gang's all here, lined up in a row, while Anderson tries to make it all better. "Strecker knew I'd go and talk with him," Anderson says, "and you wouldn't be far behind." As mentioned before, wouldn't it be nice if you'd banged those brain cells together to make fire _before_ this happened, sunshine, because you look like Mister Silly, now, don't you?  
  
"I guess we did the wrong thing," Tiny says.  
  
Mark punches his left hand with his right. "Dumb thing," he corrects. "We played right into his hands!"  
  
Well, duh.  
  
Anderson approaches Mark and lays a paternal hand on the young man's shoulder. "Don't worry about it," he says. "I know you meant to help," and this is another one of those times where the body language is sympathetic, but the tone in his voice is saying something else. This time, it isn't saying that he's having trouble keeping a lid on things, it's saying that he's just paying lip service and in truth, he's as mad as hell.  
  
"The ones who really need help," says Princess, bringing us back on track as far as the Plot is concerned, "are those people in Stellar City."  
  
Oh, yes. While we're wallowing in self-recrimination, there's that awful drought that needs relieving, isn't there?  
  
An alarm goes off, and everyone turns toward it. Above the flashing lights, there's a largish sort of screen. A scratchy image of Zoltar appears. It wavers with distortion, suggesting that he's hacking in to their comms network. Nice trick, if you can manage it.  
  
"How nice to see you all," Zoltar says by way of greeting. That's one thing about Evil Villains. They do tend to be polite. At first, anyway. Right before the maniacal laughter starts and they start messing about with lasers and boiling oil and all that stuff. "I wonder if you can guess what I have?" he asks, and they all stare at the screen in a mix of anger and apprehension. "It's a lovely photograph of you all," Zoltar gloats. "Now I know what each of you looks like out of uniform!" And I guess the reception at Zoltar's end isn't so good because if this is a two-way video communication system, he's _looking at them all out of uniform right now_. So I guess it isn't. "Doctor Strecker is a valuable agent," Zoltar says. "His photographs of you are excellent! They should be in a gallery. A rogues' gallery!" Then the Z-dude does the Evil Laughter thing to taunt them, and the signal cuts out.  
  
"Keep 'em in your wallet, Zoltar," Jason snipes, to little avail, since Z-dude has already signed off.  
  
Princess and Tiny close their eyes, looking sad and disappointed. Their civilian lives, it seems, are pretty much over.  
  
"If we can't show ourselves," Tiny reasons, "how're we gonna do any good?"  
  
"You'll find a way," Anderson promises, and they turn to look at him. Oh, fine. Right. Splendid. Their cover's been blown, they work for you, the Chief of Staff of a galaxy-wide intelligence agency, and you reckon _they'll_ find a way. Way to be totally unsupportive of your subordinates, Mr I've-got-the-emotional-intelligence-of-a-potato!  
  
Anderson is such a... such a... _twit_.  
   
Mark comes up with a Mission Statement (remember, the intelligence has trickled down from Anderson to Mark for this episode, so Mark has all the smarts, today.) "We have to find Strecker," Mark decides, "and soon."  
  
Anderson puts one hand on his chin. "Right," he agrees. "We need a plan."  
  
Good grief, any more flashes of brilliance like that, sweetie, and your IQ test'll return a false positive.  
  
  
  
Oh, no.  
  
It's Zark again.  
  
Bother.  
  
Zark is at his surveillance console, lamenting what has gone before. "I don't know how many times I've advised G-Force not to go out on a mission unless they're transmuted into uniform," he says. "Now maybe they know why I'm such a fussbudget!"  
  
Please. Make him stop.  
  
 "Those photographs Strecker gave to Zoltar," Zark continues, "could spell serious trouble for them!" Zark extends his legs and starts wiping off the screens with a cloth. "I also warned Chief Anderson about Strecker," Zark says, and I'd so like to shoot Zark at this point, most of all because he's making sense right now, but it's such self-serving sense, and self-serving 'I-told-you-so' sense doesn't count, especially when it's being delivered by Zark. "And he didn't take my advice," Zark says, smugly. "I get so hot and bothered by things like that, I steam up my monitors!"  
  
I hate that robot.  
  
"Call it a hunch in my analytical spectrometer, but something tells me Strecker is altering the climate around Stellar City. He has the scientific skill to contribute great advances, or... _deadly evil_." Zark looks to camera, in a Significant Pause sort of a way. "I'd better check on G-Force, and see if they have any solution, yet." Zark's antennae jump with this sort of buzzy, 'boiiinnnnggg' sound effect, which may have scarred me for life. Again. "Uh-oh," says Zark, "it looks as though Keyop is going to be sent into action." We cut to a view of the G-4 vehicle going through the Center Neptune car wash. "Keyop's star buggy is undergoing a special treatment to make it resistant to tronic beams." We see Anderson, looking grim, wearing tinted safety goggles and operating some kind of controls. "Dr Anderson has come up with a plan of action!"  
  
About time. Maybe Mark finally gave him some of his brain cells back.  
  
But seriously, what I think has happened here is that it's finally dawned on Anderson just what Strecker did: he threatened the kids. Okay, Anderson's not their dad, but he's responsible for them, and even though he totally sucks at it, the stuff in his head has gone round and round enough, now, that all that grief and sadness at the loss of his friendship with Strecker has undergone a transmutation of its own. Into anger. Anderson's finally quit wallowing and come out the other side as mad as a bee in a bottle, and a ticked-off Anderson is not something you want happening to you.  
  
Machinery swings around and the G-4 is being irradiated or something. Zark continues to narrate: "They now have definite proof that Dr Strecker's tronic space web is the cause of the drought that has threatened thousands of lives in Stellar City. G-Force must stop him!"  
  
So, we've gone from calling it a hunch in Zark's thingamadoodad to 'definite proof.' Fine. Whatever.  
  
Right: let's just pause for a moment and think about something that many of us take for granted.  
  
Water.  
  
Like Dr David Suzuki says, without clean air, clean water and clean food, everything else becomes secondary. Humans must have clean water in order to survive.  
  
Stellar City is clearly in the throes of a crisis in regard to its water supply.  
  
The exact location of Stellar City is not given, however in the absence of any 'space shot' footage, I'm inferring that it's on Earth.  
  
Think about it for a sec'. Where do cities get their water?  
  
Temperate zone cities, as Stellar City appears to be, get their water from a number of sources: rain catchment, ground water, recycling and desalination. Rain catchment seems to be the sore point in this case.  
  
Now, think about it some more. Where is the rain water collected? Where is it stored? Within the urban centres, or outside the city in the outer metropolitan catchment areas? If you answered 'urban centres,' go to the back of the room and write out a hundred times, 'I will look in to how my city gets its water supplies.'  
  
Now, keep thinking: the Tronic Space Web is clearly deployed over Stellar City. Even assuming it could escape detection by the people in Stellar City, Air Traffic Control, the military and Zark's all-seeing, all-knowing jargonometers, how big would it have to be to stop rain clouds reaching the entire city, including its outer metropolitan catchment areas?  
  
The space web stops planes. Does it also stop trucks, trains and cars?  
  
Didn't anyone notice anything odd?  
  
How do you power something that big?  
  
And how do you hide it?  
  
  
  
On that note, I think maybe we'd better go to Recipe of the Episode, now.  


  
  
**RANGLE CAKE**  
  
The term "rangle" comes from the United Kingdom and refers to small, smooth stones that are fed to falcons and hawks in captivity. Rangle stones are not digested by raptors but remain in the birds' crops for about a day until they are ejected as part of a pellet. The stones collect fats and oils that may have accumulated in the crop, cleaning it out. This is good for the birds' health.  
  
Human beings should never eat stones, but we do need roughage and seeds. In this cake recipe, the sunflower seeds form the "rangle."  
  
  
INGREDIENTS  
60g (2oz) butter or margarine  
½ cup raw sugar  
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract  
½ teaspoon nutmeg  
¼ teaspoon ground ginger  
¼ teaspoon mixed spice  
1 egg  
½ cup cold cooked mashed pumpkin  
¼ cup sunflower kernels  
1 cup self raising flour  
milk to mix  
  
METHOD  
Pre-heat oven to 180°C / 350°F. Grease and/or line a small loaf tin.  
  
Cream the butter or margarine with the sugar, vanilla and spices. Add the egg and beat well. Add the pumpkin and the sunflower kernels. Combine. Fold in the flour, then add milk until a firm, smooth consistency is reached (the batter should not be too soft or the sunflower kernels will sink to the bottom.)  
  
Place the mixture in the loaf tin. Sprinkle over some extra sunflower kernels, if desired. Bake for 20 - 30 minutes. A skewer inserted in the cake should come out clean when the cake is cooked.  
  


  
  
  
We now return you to your irregularly scheduled episode review.  
  
  
  
Anderson continues to irradiate the G-4. He's still looking grim -- and a bit sad, too.  
  
Now we see the team, in full uniform, standing before Anderson, back in the Chief's office. "The fate of Stellar City is in your hands, G-Force," he says. "You know how clever Doctor Strecker can be. Don't try to outguess him. He's completely unpredictable. And deadly! Your mission is to penetrate the tronic space web so the cargo planes can get through to Stellar City," Anderson tells them, and if I thought his expression was grim before, now it's downright scary. We've got him back: clear thinking and ruthless, just the way we like him. "It's not going to be easy. Remember, he's a desperate man, so watch yourselves, and good luck!"  
  
The team snap to attention and give their salute.  
  
It's like Strecker's used up all his 'Get out of Gaol Free' cards, now. By threatening G-Force, he forfeited any slack Anderson might have been inclined to cut him, and from that conversation back on Zareeba, it seemed as though Anderson was prepared to cut Strecker quite a lot of slack, but like Strecker said, it's too late for that, now. He's burned his bridges with Anderson for good, now, and that's not a happy place to be in.  
  
If Strecker were to meet Anderson again, outside of a prison facility, he really would have to make sure he killed him, because Anderson would surely kill Strecker before he gave him another chance to harm G-Force.  
  
You don't get between a predator and its young. You just don't.  
  
  
  
Now we have some snazzy snare drums beating out a military-esque cadence while fighters taxi, using their afterburners to move along the taxiway. Obviously, the technology in the BotP universe is... well, quite frankly, I'm running out of ideas to rationalise a lot of this crap, so maybe we should just ignore stuff like this from now on.  
  
"Tower to _Phoenix_ ," says a tinny air traffic controller voice, "remote-controlled fighter support squadron and cargo planes are taking off."  
  
Dramatic music, reminiscent of one of my favourite old movies, _The Battle of Britain_ plays as the camera tilts upward past the remote-controlled (read: doomed) fighters to the _Phoenix_ which is in a nice easy climb. The music gets enthusiastic and we see the cargo planes taking off, and then another shot of the _Phoenix_. The nasty dark louring clouds are gone, replaced with some rather more ordinary looking stratocumulous, so we know that it's an Optimistic Atmosphere, and everything is going to be all right now.  
  
Except possibly for Zoltar, Dr Strecker, and the remote-controlled planes.  
  
  
  
 We cut to Zoltar, and already, we can see that things are starting to go badly for Strecker. "No wonder they fired you," Zoltar says, snarling and clenching his fists. "You're a born loser, Strecker!"  
  
Way to motivate the troops, Z-dude. If there is any character on this show with less idea of how to win friends and influence people than Anderson, it's Zoltar. Oh, and Zark, of course, but that goes without saying.  
  
"You're a pitiful scientist!" Zoltar grumbles. "You can't even take decent snapshots!" Strecker's expression in this shot is like, uh, you're supposed to be a good photographer to be a scientist?  
  
In any event, Strecker recovers and gives Zoltar a confident leer. "Don't worry, Zoltar," he says, "I have the pictures of G-Force you want, but you'll pay for them, and plenty! I'm not as naive as you hoped!"  
  
Zoltar's voice turns silky, and that's a sure sign that someone is going to be doing some hurting, real soon. "Are you trying to bargain with me? I will do the bargaining, and set the terms, Doctor Strecker! Now, I demand you hand those other pictures over to me immediately, and --"  
  
Strecker's image vanishes from the screen while Zoltar is in mid-rant. Whoa. "You do not fade when I'm shrieking!" Zoltar yells. I love it when the Z-dude throws a tanty.  
  
  
  
So what's with Strecker, then? Has he had time to think about what Anderson said to him? How does Anderson's assertion that he never fired Strecker mesh with Strecker's recollection of events? Is it possible it was all a horrible, horrible mistake, and that all this misery, all this pain, was all due to the fact that Strecker chose to see something through the filter of his own ego?  
  
If that's what he's thinking, then he must be in a pretty dark place right now.  
  
Or, maybe he's simply a crazed egotist who just went a bit further over the edge.  
   
  
  
More optimistic music later, we have the _Phoenix_ , the remote-controlled fighter support squadron and the cargo planes heading for Stellar City.  
  
Aboard the _Phoenix,_ Mark turns in his seat. "Readout on the electro-gravity field constants," Mark says. Eh? Excuse me, Chicken Boy, but if something's a constant, it's er... you know... Constant. As in, constant. Dude.  
  
Princess leans forward, an expression of calm competence on her face. "Point oh-nine oh-seven," she says.  
  
Tiny gives Mark a cryptic look and says, "I'm pickin' up a weird beep on the radar scanners. It seems to be comin' from behind those storm clouds." And lo! Those are suspiciously like the storm clouds behind which the Spectra Space Spider was lurking at the beginning of the episode, so that's ominous.  
  
Jason gives Tiny a knowing look (he must have been watching at the start of the episode.) "We're pulling close to that sky web," he says.  
  
Mark studies his console for a second. "Set the ion drive capstans," he says, which makes no sense at all. I hate it when they go all meaningless-jargon on us like this. "Give the _Phoenix_ full thrust, Tiny."  
  
"Big ten," Tiny acknowledges, and he moves the thrust lever forward with a grim smile on his face.  
  
The _Phoenix_ , the fighters and the cargo planes descend to below the cloud base and close in on the tronic web.  
   
Unnatural lightning flashes luridly in the dark clouds.  
  
"Hey," Mark says, and looks worried.  
  
"Huh?" Tiny joins in, and looks alarmed and perplexed.  
  
"Bogey," Jason says, and looks sweaty.  
  
They're all concerned. I get that.  
  
The _Phoenix_ breaks through cloud, and there is the Spectra Space Spider, accompanied by ominous music for those who may have been harbouring any doubts. It's so scary, Keyop has to throw himself into Princess' arms. It makes a certain amount of sense: he's just a kid, and he's been selected to go up against this thing by himself, since it was his vehicle that went through the beam protection process. He's right to be nervous, I guess.  
  
"That must be Doctor Strecker's Space Spider," Princess says, just in case any of us didn't get it the first or second times. The remote-controlled fighters bank and close in on the web. Princess, watching the tactical display aboard the _Phoenix_ is obliging enough to say so just in case we didn't get it the first time.  
  
Mark flips buttons and a slider moves up along its scale. It looks like the indicator we see when they go to _Fiery Phoenix_ , only it doesn't slide all the way to the right, this time. "Okay, G-Force," Mark says, "batten down the hatches. It's time to send that creepy Space Spider down the tube." Is that an _Incey Wincey_ reference, I wonder?  
  
"You fools," we hear Dr Strecker say, presumably over the communications system. "Not even your cerebonic powers are strong enough to penetrate my Tronic Space Web!" Whoa. Strecker knows about the cerebonics. And Galaxy Security just let him up and defect... Anderson must have been asleep at the switch for this one.  
   
"Tiny," Mark orders, "fire the electron blast motors for more drift acceleration."  
  
Say what, now?  
  
Drift acceleration? Sorry? They want to drift faster? Um, dude, drift is like an _error factor_ in navigation. Nobody wants to... Oh, never mind. I give up.  
  
Tiny must know this, because he looks really appalled. "I'm givin' 'er the limit!" he declares.  
  
"Punch in fusion mass reserves," Mark says. Erm... Okay. I gave up after Mark's last line, so I'm not even going to go there.  
  
"I'll try anything!" Tiny says, and firewalls that universal lever thing of his.  
  
The music goes all tense and dramatic as the remote-controlled (read: doomed) fighters attack, firing their air-to-air ordnance at the Space Spider. Strecker is standing at the controls, looking like he's got it all together, one hand behind his back, radiating confidence. He takes a moment to gloat: "G-Force is playing right into my hands, exactly where I want them!" He reaches out and presses all the buttons in a bank of them. This time, instead of energising a web, the beam generators actively shoot the remote-controlled (read: doomed) fighters down. "Prepare to launch the space web!" he orders, and for the first time, we see he's got two goons with him, sitting at the controls. "I want G-Force taken alive!" Strecker hisses the last word, almost like Gollum from _The Lord of the Rings_. At this point, he is turning in to one creepy guy. I mean, earlier, there was all that pathos and stuff, but now he's just creeping me out. "I'll auction them off to the highest bidder!" he declares. "They should bring me a king's ransom!"  
  
Yup. Creepy.  
  
Back aboard the _Phoenix_ , Princess reports that they're at, "Nine degrees and closing." Looks more like sixty degrees to me, but... wait. I forgot. I gave up back there at 'drift acceleration,' didn't I?  
  
 "Okay, Tiny," says Mark, "kick in the turbo thrust." Turbo thrust I can deal with -- except you don't _have_ turbo on a -- no. No, I gave up before.  
  
On the bridge of the Space Spider, Strecker does his Gollum impersonation again. "Now!" he hisses. Yesss, Preciousss, we're giving the audience the creepses.  
  
So the spiderlings are launched and we see that tactical display again, as the remotes spread out into a circle.  
  
Tiny can see them on the _Phoenix_ 's main view screen, and his eyes go wide. "What now, Commander?" he asks.  
  
"Keep her dead ahead," Mark says, sparing Tiny the barest of sidelong glances. I love the subtlety, here. You can see that Mark is focussing on his enemy, but he also has to watch his team, so he's dividing his attention as much as he dares. He's under the pump, this episode, having had to carry the intelligence can for Anderson earlier on and now he's leading his team into an extremely dangerous fight. He's performing well under pressure. Say... this must we why he's the Commander of G-Force.  
  
The space web forms, all sparkly and dangerous like before, when it destroyed all those cargo planes. And we all know that sparkly things can be bad, right, kids?  
  
Mark's sweating, now, and he tells Tiny to, "Switch to fission frequencies." I'm not going there.  
  
"Check," Tiny responds, and executes a command at his console.  
  
The _Phoenix_ is fast approaching the space web. The G-Force command ship goes into a steep climb, seemingly trying to avoid the web, then the nacelle catches and it's caught like an insect in a bug zapper.  
  
Tiny's struggling to keep his bird in the air. The tactical display starts to fracture and Keyop throws himself into Princess' arms again. The ceiling starts to crack. Clearly, the ship is coming apart!  
  
At this point, Mark's powers of observation kick in: "The _Phoenix_ can't withstand the strain," he declares, and the camera switches to a nifty overhead view showing all the cracks in the equipment cabinets. "Let's try Plan B, team! Time to do your thing, Keyop!"  
  
Funny, from what Zark was saying earlier, I could have sworn that was Plan A. Oh, never mind.  
  
Mark runs from the bridge, followed by Keyop, Princess and Jason. Tiny turns his attention to the controls, looking really worried and scared. "Integrators engaged!" he reports to no-one in particular.  
  
Those integrators must be pretty cool becuase the _Phoenix_ 's exhaust turns from orange to blue, just like the flame on my brazing torch does when I reduce the oxygen feed, and the ship pulls free of the space web.  
  
The camera focusses on the starboard wing pod, now, which opens to disgorge the G-4 Star Buggy. In the command seat, Keyop is looking grim and determined. Maybe here we have another male with control issues: Keyop acts like a scared little kid when there's nothing much he can do about the danger he's in (aboard the _Phoenix_ or being tossed around in the trunk of the mid-life mobile) but when he's in control, he's grim and determined.  
  
"S'long spider!" he chirps.  
  
He steers the G-4 straight into the space web, which crackles with energy, but doesn't affect the buggy. Keyop looks pleased. "Super spray-job!" he declares happily. Yup. He's brave when his fate is in his own little hands. He only gets scared when he has to rely on others for his safety. Or maybe he just likes throwing himself into Princess' arms.  
  
Out comes the G-4's mobile circular-saw-on-a-stick accessory (sold separately, batteries not included) which slices through the space web. The G-4 is going through the web like a broom under the eaves.  
  
Tiny, sitting up straight in his seat, observes this from the _Phoenix_ and smiles. "Good man, Keyop," he says, and starts following the G-4 straight toward the spider mother-ship.  
  
The _Phoenix_ rams the spider ship, tearing clean through the fuselage and scattering goons. Nice trick if you can manage it.  
  
The dorsal dome opens to release Mark, Jason and Princess, who leap onto a handy gantry, above and behind Dr Strecker, who is staring in shock at the sudden appearance of about one third of the _Phoenix_.  
  
Actually, at this point I'm reminded of a scene from Douglas Adams' _Life, the Universe and Everything_ where the Krikkit Robots steal the gold bail from Zaphod Beeblebrox's infinite improbability drive (Strecker has the same hair as BBC-TV Zaphod, as opposed to movie-Zaphod) and Zaphod says, "I can't help but notice that you have parked your ship through mine."  
  
Strecker doesn't get the chance to deliver any snappy Beeblebroxisms, however, because Mark takes the initiative and says, "Doctor Strecker! Your giant space web is gone!" Strecker turns as though only just realising that he has visitors. "We ask you to surrender, Strecker," Mark says.  
  
"Give it up," Jason adds, for good measure.  
  
So, they're giving Smeagol a chance to come quietly, at least.  
  
Abruptly, we cut to Tiny, who is reclining in the pilot's chair aboard the _Phoenix_. "The team's doin' great," he observes. "Strecker's crew sure scrambled in a hurry." Then his eyes widen and he leans forward, alarmed at what he sees on the view screen, which is Strecker, running through a hatchway. "Doctor Strecker's cutting out!"  
  
I would have expected the others to notice this, actually, seeing as they're right there on the spot.  
  
It's interesting to note that there are four bodies lying prone around the hatchway. Is this what Tiny meant by 'scrambled,' I wonder? Or are we just supposed to assume that they're taking a nap?  
  
For reasons unknown and unexplained, the G-4 slams into the hatch, jamming and blocking it. Mark, Jason and Princess leap nimbly through the gaps, however, to confront Strecker, who has stopped at a control panel of some kind.  
  
"Hold it!" Strecker tells them.  
  
For another set of reasons unknown and unexplained, Princess' transformer bracelet suddenly comes undone and falls off her wrist.  
  
"I've lost my activator," she observes. She stands motionless whilst light envelops her, and she transmutes back to civilian mode.  
  
Mark looks alarmed.  
  
Jason looks alarmed.  
  
Keyop, from within the G-4 with his hands against the viewport surface, looks alarmed.  
  
"I'll add this pretty shot to my collection!" says Strecker, reaching for Patch-cam.  
  
Mark and Jason leap in front of Princess -- who does not retain the presence of mind to _turn around_ \-- and spread their cape wings to obscure her from Strecker's -- and Patch-cam's -- view.  
  
A set of bolas whirls through the air and wraps itself around Strecker's left wrist. The impact turns him around and knocks him against the control console. Mark and Jason boost Princess up to the G-4, where Keyop hustles her inside.  
  
Mark grabs hold of Strecker and hauls him upright to face him. "All right, Strecker, hand over all those photos, or else!" he demands.  
  
Strecker retains a commendable amount of arrogance at this point, and taunts Mark: "Or else, what?"  
  
Mark brandishes his sonic boomerang. "I'm not your old friend, but Chief Anderson is, and he wants us to return you for rehabilitation. Personally, I don't think you deserve the chance." He pushes the sharp and pointy wingtips of the boomerange up close to Strecker's face, near his remaining eye.  
  
Strecker doesn't lose his cool He doesn't break eye contact to look at the weapon like most people might. "What can you do to me?" he challenges. "My career was finished when I left Center Neptune and lost the best friend I ever had. Nothing matters." We see another little flashback, now, and this time, Anderson is standing at an angle to the camera, looking down as though in judgement, his expression stern and unforgiving.  
  
Mark allows Strecker to reach into his jacket (right where a lot of people would conceal a weapon) and withdraw a piece of paper. "Here," says Strecker. "I gave Zoltar this same print and destroyed all the original negatives." (So, what was that business with Zoltar and the goons in the image processing lab, earlier?)  
  
Mark releases Strecker in order to take the photograph in both hands. He holds it close to his face and stares at it in apparent disbelief.  
  
Whilst Mark is doing this, Strecker's right hand steals up to what looks like the air conditioning controls. Oh, no, is he going to change the ambient temperature from the settings recommended by the Occupational Health and Safety officer?  
  
Strecker's hand trembles, and he presses a Significant Button.  
  
The music goes all sentimental.  
  
Mark looks up from the photograph. "It's not too late to make the right turn of the road," he says. The significant button is now turning around and ticking ominously. "Come back with us, Doctor," Mark says gently.  
  
Strecker sinks into a chair, shoulders slumped, utterly defeated. "Leave me in peace," he bids them. "Go, Get out."  
  
Mark closes his eyes, his face mirroring oceans of regret.  
  
"Come on, Mark," Jason urges. "He set the dial on a time bomb!" The G-4 is backing out of the hatch, and Jason is about to follow.  
  
Mark stares at Strecker's back for a moment, then makes a decision, and leaps back up to the gantry, leaving Strecker to his own devices.  
  
The explosive ones, that is.  
  
With one last glance, Mark turns and runs back toward the _Phoenix_.  
  
Strecker lifts his head and stares at the now empty and ruined hatchway. He seems more relaxed, now, almost happy at this turn of events. "Goodbye," he says, "friends."  
  
Cut to Anderson's office. The Chief is hard at work staring down his personal demons (or is he just having a staring contest with the fish?) when a framed picture on his desk falls over, making him turn and look. He stares at it, open-mouthed, and we see that it's a photo of Strecker and Anderson shaking hands. The glass has cracked from top to bottom, right down the middle, symbolically severing them.  
  
It's like Strecker has finally let go of everything -- not just the friendship, but the resulting animosity, and very shortly, his corporeal existence.  
  
Back above Stellar City, the _Phoenix_ pulls free of the Space Spider and its web, climbing quickly away from the doomed vessel.  
  
The timer is winding down, and abruptly, the Spider blows up. Energy courses through the space web, taking out the little spiderling ships, and the entire array plunges to the ground, trailing flames.  
  
Um... wasn't it directly over Stellar City?  
  
Now the people in Stellar City have to deal with a bloody great big lump of burning spider-wreckage _and they are in the grip of a water shortage_. Nice one.  
  
Zoltar is staring at a screen which offers only static. He stands with one hand clenched. "No pictures of G-Force," he hisses, no space web, and no victory!" His hands go to his head, as though he's having trouble working it out. "Strecker betrayed me to save his friends!" He so doesn't get that. It's hurting his brain.  
  
The _Phoenix_ is parked on hardstand, and the team is standing out to one side, watching the smoke plume from the wreckage of the Space Spider. The smoke has coloured the sky and it's turning the light that browny-orange colour you get when there's a forest fire (if you do not know what this looks like first hand, consider yourself lucky.)  
  
Princess puts her braclet back on, to the sound of happy music. "My wrist activator is working fine," she tells the rest of the team, giving them a cheerful smile.  
  
Keyop, leaning impudently against Mark, chirrups and stutters for a moment. "About that picture," he says. "I hope he got my best side!"  
  
Mark steps aside, unbalancing Keyop, and shoves the photograph in his face. "Here, handsome!" he says.  
  
Keyop grabs the photo and gapes at it. Jason, Tiny and Princess lean over his skinny shoulders to take a look. They all stare for a moment, then burst out laughing.  
  
Strecker's black and white photograph shows five sets of feet and legs, leaping away from the centre of the shot.  
  
Keyop tears it up into tiny bits, and throws them skyward, where they scatter.  
  
  
  
And now, of course, we must have Zark.  
  
"The emergency supplies are on their way to Stellar City," the robot says, as we see more cargo planes winging their way against a background of reddish clouds. "Now that the space web is gone, Stellar City will be saved!" G-Force watches the cargo planes fly away, but Zark can't let it go at that. "Doctor Strecker may have made some terrible mistakes with his life, but at least he didn't give the photographs to Zoltar."  
  
The camera pulls back leaving G-Force staring into the sunset.  
  
There's a fast cut back to Center Neptune, and --- Gaaaaahk!  
  
Zark is taking an oil shower. My eyes! Aaagh! My eyes!  
  
He's singing in the shower, and 1-Rover-1 is waiting outside the stall with a towel.  
  
You know that shuddery thing Homer Simpson does when his imagination conjures up something he can't deal with? I'm doing that, now.  
  
Zark's singing is appalling. There's an 'incoming signal' alert from off camera. Zark doesn't hear it, but Rover yaps at him to tell him to answer the damned phone.  
  
Zark shuts off the shower, opens the door of the shower stall and accepts the towel. He dries himself off, wraps the towel around his supposed nether regions (Make him stop!) while the alert goes off again. Zark shuffles off to answer it.  
  
Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse, it's Susan.  
  
Zark explains to Susan that he was just taking a bath, and Suz says that she knows. Zark is appalled at this, and Suz reminds him that she has electronic spectravision, just like he has. She points out that she can see through millions of miles, and I suspect Janet Waldo is having a bit of a giggle as she says these lines. "Even... through cloth?" Zark asks querulously, clearly referring to his towel. Suz laughs. "Unfortunately, no," she says, and Zark pulls the towel up around himself in horror. "Goodnight, Susan!" he tells her.  
  
And the final credits roll.  
  
  
  
I think this episode is memorable for a whole bunch of reasons, and one of those is the huge vacuum of information it leaves in its wake.  
  
There's so much left unsaid in the story it tells.  
  
I have to wonder about Strecker: what really went on between him and Anderson that he felt he was being fired, even if Anderson felt he wasn't firing him? How do two intelligent men have such a massive misunderstanding?  
  
I also wonder why Mark left Strecker to die. He explicitly stated that Anderson wanted Strecker brought back for rehabilitation. Why did Mark disobey a directive from his Chief of Staff?  
  
Could it have been out of pity for Strecker? After all, we don't know what constitutes 'rehabilitation' in the BotP universe, but Strecker chose to die rather than to submit to it.  
  
Or was it because Mark doesn't trust Anderson's judgement where Strecker is concerned?  
  
So many questions.  
  
A final thought: just imagine how powerful this episode could have been if it didn't have Zark in it.


End file.
